"All the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and . . . the State should be abolished." —Benjamin Tucker

"You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." —James Madison

"Fat chance." —Sheldon Richman

Available Now! (click cover)

America's Counter-Revolution

The Constitution Revisited

From the back cover:

This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, Richman suggests that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class.

8 comments:

I've heard that argument for a long time, that market economies "naturally become dominated by a few firms" but never with much context to it. It makes sense that cartels and monopolies could only occur under a capitalist/statist system. Do you know of any good information on the topic?

I'd like for it to be true, but if I made that assertion and somebody called me on it the best argument I could make would be an argument from authority. My friends wouldn't find that argument persuasive.

You can find historical information in Franz Oppenheimer's The State; Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, The State; Arthur Ekirch's The Decline of American Liberalism, Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective. Carson will direct you to more books and articles.

Labor and capital became separated in their efforts to exclude each other from control of the government (and so, to control it exclusively). Without government power to fight over, the two would end up with no rational course of action but to cooperate overtly.

The Center for a Stateless Society

Recognize

I am a Palestinian.

HT: Roderick Long

Anticopyright

Unless otherwise noted, to the extent possible under law, Sheldon Richman has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to all original content on the Free Association blog, through the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. This work is published from: United States.

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